Text Fwd: DRONE EXPLOSION

* Image source: same as below

Bruce Gagnon blog Nov. 16, 2009
DRONE EXPLOSION

Bob Anderson in Albuquerque, NM sent me a bunch of photos this morning from a protest they just held at Kirtland AFB. Kirtland is a key space warfare technology development base and the folks there who make up the group called Stop the War Machine hold regular protests at the base.

There was also a drone protest this past weekend in upstate New York were Reaper UAV's will be based.

Out near Las Vegas, Nevada a series of protests are being planned at Creech AFB where drones are flown via space satellites over Afghanistan and Pakistan. A CodePink bus will go from the San Francisco bay area to Creech on November 26 and folks will hold actions outside the base thru December 2.

Here in Maine the key advocate for a UAV flight test center at the closing Brunswick Naval Air Station, John Richardson, is declaring his candidacy for governor today. He is a Democrat, and former speaker of the Maine House of Representatives. In the last couple years he has been serving as the Commissioner of the Department of Economic and Community Development. In that role he has been serving on the base redevelopment authority and well over a year ago I saw an article in the local paper where he was pushing drones.

The Democrats are happy to take any and all Pentagon largess....that's one reason why I will be voting for Maine's Green Party governor candidate Lynne Williams in the next election.

Video Fwd: [Bruce Gagnon] Portland Rally

* Bruce Gagnon blog
Nov. 7, 2009


'My talk last night during the very cold but excellent anti-war rally in Portland.
Heading north with MB today to visit Baxter State Park before winter sets in.
Should be nice weather for hiking.'

• Bruce Gagnon talks about the relationship between the naval base planned area of the Jeju Island and the Aegis Destroyer ship making in the state of Maine. He also makes the critic about the F-15 that are planned to be flied in the western part of Maine reminding his visit to the Kunsan U.S. AFB where fighter plane noise makes the 35% sterile rate of the rabbits. He also talks about the critic on drones that are planned to be flying-tested in Maine. Finally he talks about the importance of the cutting the military and war spending in Iraq and Afghanistan.

브루스 개그논 11 월 6일 메인주 포틀랜드 반전 집회 연설

해군 기지 예정지인 제주도의 강정 마을과 이지스 구축함을 건조하는 메인주와의 연관성에 대해 이야기한다. 또한 그의 군산 기지 방문을 상기시키고 군산 기지의 비행기 소음으로 토끼의 불임률이 35%임을 밝히면서 메인주 서부 F-15의 비행 계획에 대한 비판을 한다. 또한 메인주 에서 실험 예정으로 되어 있는 무인 비행기에 대해 비판한다. 마지막으로 이라크와 아프가니스탄등 군사, 전쟁 지출을 삭감하는 것의 중요성을 이야기 한다.

'Lisa Savage from Maine CodePink had an excellent speech at the rally.

Video Fwd: BITS FROM DRONE HEARING IN BRUNSWICK

* Bruce Gagnon blog
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
BITS FROM DRONE HEARING IN BRUNSWICK



A few of the speakers at the Town of Brunswick and MRRA public hearing the other night.

Especially moving was the last speaker of the night, a woman we did not know who came from the Brunswick community. She told a heart breaking story about a father in Afghanistan holding his small daughter who had been killed by a drone, and concluded her words with a special surprise statement.

Text Fwd: BEHOLDEN TO NO ONE

* Bruce Gagnon blog
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
BEHOLDEN TO NO ONE



Last night nearly 30 peaceniks attended the joint meeting of the Brunswick Town Council and the Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority (MRRA). The MRRA has been tasked by the state with the responsibility to plan for what will happen at the local Naval Air Station after it closes in 2011.

At the beginning of the meeting one town councillor said she had never seen so many people at one of their meetings since she began serving on the council. Most of those in the packed audience had come because of the flurry of news articles and letters to the editor in the local paper about using the base as an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Flight Test Center.

One of the first things that was stated by the leadership of the MRRA was that the town council would have no authority over any decisions made by the redevelopment agency. The members of the MRRA are all appointed by the governor and as one member told the audience, "We are appointed for four-year terms and have no constituency."

Yeah, right.

Again the MRRA, sensing that there was deep concern in the audience about the drone issue, launched a preemptive strike when one member declared, "UAV's are consistent with our aviation feasibility study" that recommends "aviation and aerospace" as potential uses of the closing base.

In my words to the town council and MRRA I shared conclusions from a recent study by three UAV experts to the Welsh government where they suggest that drones testing is not safe.

I said: Airworthiness standards are insufficiently mature to allow their use over populated areas; the need for segregated airspace for drone testing will impact civilian air operations; they will invade our privacy because they are outfitted with surveillance cameras and there will be no real controls over who gets the information; they will pollute and make unwanted noise; AND PROBABLY MOST IMPORTANTLY because of intermittent communication and loss of contact arising from terrain shielding and the absence of on-board pilots to deal with emergency situations they will not be immune to crashes – it would be like your cell phone temporarily being out of reception range, drones fly by receiving radio signals from satellites; termination of flights will not be controllable.

In the last month two UAV's crashed in Iraq and one crashed in Wales.

Several other strong presentations were also made that appealed to these two government bodies to create a positive sustainable presence at the closing base. One speaker, reminding the MRRA that they had just said the redevelopment plans included a world-class resort hotel and two different college facilities, questioned the logic of having drones buzzing around these heavily populated institutions. That one drew a hearty laugh from the assembled.

After a while the council chair tired of hearing from the great unwashed in the audience and determined that no one else wanting to talk about drones (at this advertised public hearing) could speak. Only local residents with something else to say (and obviously more important) should address the be-knighted, she concluded. That didn't work out well as still a couple more anti-droners took to the podium.

We got a spirited lecture from John Richardson, former speaker of the Maine House of Representatives who now sits on the MRRA board. He was appointed by the governor as his Commissioner of the Department of Economic and Community Development. Mr. Richardson did a long bloviation about how he opposed the war in Iraq and led the effort to have the Maine House pass a resolution against it. Very commendable.

But then Mr. Richardson, and MRRA Executive Director Steve Levesque, launched their final strike against us by saying that at this time there was really no issue about drones. There was no need for concern, they warned. At this time there were "no proposals" to use the base as a drone flight test center.

Of course these guys think we just fell off the back of the pumpkin delivery truck. It was like listening to Bill Clinton give a definition of what "is" is.

My reaction to all this? Why, if there would ultimately be no plans for drone testing in Brunswick, did Mr. Richardson feel the slightest need to tell the local newspaper on September 1, "There are many adaptive uses of UAVs that could be very helpful to the nation and then the world. I wouldn't cast out of hand UAV research or testing, because of the potential benefits to the nation in the areas of search and rescue, air and water quality, homeland security and even forest fire prevention."

Some people will do and say anything to make a buck.

Tonight I drive south to Portland to attend a meeting of the Maine State Rail Plan Technical Advisory Committee. In my early years as an organizer I co-founded a group called the Peoples Transit Organization in Orlando, Florida that fought against more and wider road building and instead pushed for bus expansion and construction of light rail in the community. One of our first acts was to suggest to the City Council of Orlando that they put a free trolley line in the downtown area. They laughed us out the door. Last time I visited Orlando I saw a free trolley line carrying folks from one end of downtown to the other.

It would be great if tonight, instead of driving to Portland, I could take a light-rail line just like the one in the video above now being used in San Diego, California. It could be built at Bath Iron Works or at a new facility on the grounds of the closing Brunswick Naval Air Station. Research shows that more jobs would be created for local workers than we will get from testing drones or building Aegis destroyers in our community.

But sadly these ideas were not very welcome last night. The MRRA and their courtiers have their own plans afoot - and remember, they are beholden to no one.

Text Fwd: BRING HOME THE EMPIRE

Bruce Gagnon blog
Sunday, September 27, 2009
BRING HOME THE EMPIRE

I had a wonderful day yesterday at the Common Ground Fair just outside of Unity, Maine. The weather was a perfect fall day, sunny and cool, and the crowds were enormous - likely in the tens of thousands.

I worked for several hours at the Veterans for Peace table gathering signatures on the petition opposing the plan to create an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) flight test center (the drone zone the local paper calls it) in nearby Brunswick. Under another of the huge tents the Peace Action Maine table was doing the same thing so between us we reached many people on the topic.

At 2:00 pm about 15 fellow peace activists from around the state gathered by one of the fair entrances where we dressed ourselves in black capes and put on white masks. We hung big black sandwich-board signs over our shoulders that in white letters raised the issues of endless war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Two of us with drums, one in front and the other near the rear, pounded a slow and steady heartbeat as we walked throughout the huge fairgrounds for more than 30 minutes in a solemn single-file. The crowds would stop what they were doing and watch us though many more than we would have expected at such a "progressive" fair stood with blank stares on their faces. Of course we received many positive messages too but following our second time around the fair, after we had removed our costumes, all those participating agreed that many people in the public are in emotional shutdown.

It reminds me of the book called Art of Loving by Eric Fromm. He told the story about pre-Nazi Germany where psychology students went out onto the streets and queried the public about their reasons for virtually ignoring the warning signs of a coming fascism. The students found that the public did not want to think about it nor did they wish to act.

In his book The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness, Fromm wrote:

To have faith means to dare, to think the unthinkable, yet to act within the limits of the realistically possible; it is the paradoxical hope to expect the Messiah every day, yet not to lose heart when he has not come at the appointed hour. This hope is not passive and it is not patient; on the contrary, it is impatient and active, looking for every possibility of action within the realm of real possibilities. Least of all it is passive as far as the growth and liberation of one's own person are concerned.... The situation of mankind is too serious to permit us to listen to the demagogues - least of all demagogues who are attracted to destruction - or even to the leaders who use only their brains and whose hearts have hardened. Critical and radical thought will only bear fruit when it is blended with the most precious quality man is endowed with - the love of life.

At about 4:00 pm yesterday Maine Veterans for Peace president Dud Hendrick and I did a one-hour talk with about 25 people under one of the small workshop tents provided by the fair. We spoke about the growing US military empire and told some stories about how US bases in places like Diego Garcia, Marshall Islands, Greenland, and South Korea have stolen land from the peoples of those countries. We asked why the American people are not more engaged about the many thefts that result when one nation builds an empire?

My bottom line message was conversion, beating the swords into plowshares, and the need for all of us to find ways in our everyday lives to enflesh, to give life, to that demand if we hope to successfully bring home the empire.

Watch CBS TV News segment on the F-22 and local production jobs


Watch CBS Videos Online


posted by Bruce Gagnon | 11:45 AM

Text Fwd: THIS IS AEROSPACE HQ?

* Image source: same as below

Bruce Gagnon blog
Sept. 25, 2009
THIS IS AEROSPACE HQ?

Something fishy is going on here in Brunswick, Maine.

The corporation that is proposing to bring an Unmanned Flight Testing Center to the soon to be closed Naval Air Station in Brunswick is called Grifin LLC. As their headquarters, on a request for federal funding application, they give the address of 10 Mast Lane in Brunswick. The photo above is that address. Does not look much like your typical aerospace corporate HQ. One friend remarked that it appears as if Grifin LLC is fronting for some larger entity.

We learned yesterday that a similar drone flight test center in Wales, being challenged by the peace movement there, had recently had a UAV crash. You can see the story here

We also learned that three UAV experts in Wales have made public a study saying that UAV testing is not safe, especially near populated areas. You can see the report here

We have shared this latest info from Wales with media around Maine. It will be interesting to see if any of them do anything with it.

The Maine Aerospace Alliance (MAA) has just hired a guy with a background at Lockheed Martin to be their new Executive Director. The MAA has been instrumental in promoting the drone test center in Brunswick.

The newsletter of the Manufacturers Association of Maine reports that the MAA is "Partnering with Grifin LLC, Applied Thermal Sciences, Telford Aviation and Maine Aerospace Consulting todetermine the feasibility of creating an Unmanned Flight Center (UFC) in Brunswick."

We will continue to do our best to bring it all out into the open so the public can have something to say about it before it is a done deal.

We are being told by some local state politicians not to worry about this drone flight test center. But I've come to believe that these politicians are just trying to get us to give up and go away while they all work quietly behind the scenes to make it happen.

Many in state and local government think that we have to take Pentagon money if we want local job creation because there is nothing else to replace it. Better here than somewhere else one local official told one of our supporters just yesterday about the drones. This kind of "resignation" is what will in the end result in the further militarization of our economy and our culture unless we each unequivocally stand up against this.

We will only get solar, wind, and public transit manufacturing, instead of more military production, if we fight for it now. Otherwise the momentum of the status quo will prevail.




* Related blogs

http://space4peace.blogspot.com/2009/09/no-drones-in-maine-or-anywhere-else.html
Monday, September 21, 2009
NO DRONE TESTING IN MAINE (OR ANYWHERE ELSE)

http://nobasestorieskorea.blogspot.com/2009/09/text-fwd-droning-on.html
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Text Fwd: DRONING ON

[국문 번역]Video Fwd: KILLER BEE UAV'S

Bruce Gagnon blog
Tuesday, September 22, 2009 2009년 9월 22일
KILLER BEE UAV'S 살인벌 무인 비행기





'Swift Engineering is developing the Killer Bee unmanned aerial vehicle and produced this video animation of the UAV on a mission.

'스위프트 엔지니어링은 살인벌 무인 비행 차량을 개발하고 있고 이 무인 비행기가 임무를 수행하는 모습을 비디오 애니메이션으로 만들었다.

This is the future of warfare.....cheap, "sanitized," and fewer casualties for the "good guys". They need more testing areas for these systems and places like Brunswick, Maine are high on their list.'

이것이 전쟁의 미래이다.... 싸고, "위생적이고" 그리고 "좋은 사람들(미국 군)"의 사상자 수를 줄이는. 그들은 이 시스템을 위해 더 많은 실험 지역을 필요로 하고 메인주 브런즈윅은 바로 그 리스트의 수위에 있다."

Text Fwd: DRONING ON

Bruce Gagnon blog on Sept. 2, 2009
Wednesday, September 02, 2009
DRONING ON

Our local newspaper reported yesterday that the Navy has flown an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) into our community for a week-long visit. This is nothing more than a public relations effort to promote the idea that the Brunswick (Maine) Naval Air Station, set for closure in 2011, could be turned into an "Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Test Center."

The Times Record article extensively quoted me and another local peace activist and ended with a revealing statement from Maine's commissioner of economic and community development, a guy by the name of John Richardson, who is planning to run for governor in our next statewide election. Just days ago one of our key peace movement leaders in the state reported that she had talked with Mr. Richardson and he said there was no plan to use the closing base as a UAV test center. Politicians do deceive.

In the news article Richardson says, "There are many adaptive uses of UAV's that could be very helpful to the nation and then to the world. I wouldn't cast out of hand UAV research or testing, because of the potential benefits to the nation in the areas of search and rescue, air and water quality, homeland security and even forest fire prevention."

How nice....how sweet. So that is what the US has been doing with our UAV's in Afghanistan and Pakistan....checking on water quality?

In the interview Richardson, a Democrat and former speaker of Maine's House of Representatives, noted that the Global Hawk drone that visited Brunswick is a surveillance craft, "which is different than the drones that drop bombs."

We know that the fledgling aerospace industry in Maine is drooling at the prospects of using the closing Naval Air Station as a drone test center. They have formed a committee to push this project and have developed a relationship with the University of Maine to begin offering an "aerospace industry" class at the institution this fall. In one video of the aerospace committee that I recently saw they were excited about the fact that the Pentagon is moving from expensive fighter aircraft to cheaper UAV's for war fighting. The aerospace committee was predicting that this was a "growth market" and that Maine needs to get in on the ground floor. Someone is going to make some big money they were saying as they rubbed their hands together.

In the article I was quoted talking about the UMASS-Amherst Economics Department study that points out that military spending is capital intensive while every other kind of job creation is labor intensive. Since the base closure is causing much distress about job loss in our community it was important to get that information into the news article. Fortunate for us the newspaper ran the story at the top of the mast on the front page.

It will now be crucial that the peace movement in Maine respond resoundingly to this trial balloon that was floated by the "visit" of this UAV to Brunswick. We are suggesting that Mainers call the town of Brunswick at 725-6659 to lodge your disagreement with the idea of turning the Naval Air Station into a UAV Flight Test Center. Since the state is at some level going to pay for redevelopment of the base this is a legitimate statewide issue.

Because the UAV market is expected to be so huge globally we are beginning to hear from activists in other places who are facing this same issue. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in Wales is reporting that a UAV development operation is going to be set up in their country. And interestingly enough, it is being similarly sold as a "civilian" use.

Funny how the development and testing of these killer drones is always just for civil use........